Reading true

More textual riches. One of my brother-in-laws has been offering close readings, including careful, beautiful highlighting things I’ve never considered, on _Othello_ on his blog.

I saw _Othello_ more than ten years ago, at a summer Shakespeare festival, in Houston. I remember very little of the production: something operatic, something tragic.

I actually have a hard time reading Shakespeare’s plays on my own. Funny thing for a Performing Arts teacher to say. I’ve been spoiled by enormously rich teachers and classes where I read Shakespeare in community, and in performance. I’ve never “had” to read alone, and never wanted to. Andrew’s explication makes me want to do something I’ve never done: read _Othello_ [on my own.]

” ‘What did thy song bode, lady?

Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
And die in music. [She sings.] “Willow, willow, willow.”
Moor, she was chaste. She loved thee, cruel Moor.
So come my soul to bliss as I speak true.
So speaking as I think, alas, I die.’

This is Emilia. She has been stabbed by her husband, Iago, for telling the truth to Othello, the tragic hero of the play. Othello killed his wife, Desdemona, because his officer, Iago, schemed against him and led him to believe Desdemona was having an affair with another officer, Cassio. Emilia had been Desdemona’s maidservant, and had picked up a handkerchief that Desdemona dropped and given it to Iago. Iago later used that evidence to convince Othello that Desdemona was unfaithful. It is Emilia who convinces Othello that what he did was wrong, and who brings her husband Iago’s treachery to light.

In contrast to Desdemona, who uses her last words to try to cover for her husband, Othello, even though he killed her, saying only she was to blame for her death, Emilia defies her husband, Iago, to tell the truth, even though Iago threatens her. And when she tells Othello that it was she who found the handkerchief and gave it to Iago, implicating Iago in the deception, Iago mortally stabs her.

Over the past few years of teaching Othello, I have been drawn to the character of Emilia in the play. She doesn’t figure very prominently in the beginning of the play. When we first meet her, she is a pitiable character.

In Act II, she gets off the boat in Cyprus and Cassio gives her a gentlemanly kiss and Iago says, ‘Sir, would she give you so much of her lips / As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, / You would have enough.’

In light of Emilia’s role in Act V, it is prophetic. She talks too much, Iago says. And he goes on to make chauvinist remarks about women, which Emilia seems to roll her eyes at, but endure, while Desdemona guffaws and banters with Iago, upholding the honor of women.

[…]”

I am fascinated by this idea of a truth-teller, especially because it seems that Emilia is a lesser-known character in the play. How is it that a liar, Iago, takes more energy, and more of the audience’s attention?

In January, I was at a dinner party with a mixture of people I knew fairly well, and people I didn’t know at all. Another woman, upon being introduced to me, described her childhood. In great detail, she told of her mother, marrying young and raising her single-handedly, working long hours to provide for her daughter. She described a working-class upbringing, and an inspirational figure of a mother who always told her, “Even if we don’t have a lot, we have more than most, and you can be anything you want to be.”

I felt such a connection to this woman, and was inspired by her mother. For at least ten minutes, our end of the table was held captive by this story about her childhood. Then, the woman said, “Oh, none of that is true.” I was shocked. Several other people were shocked. I said, “Wait. I felt such a strong connection to your working-class background. That’s not real?” Another man said, ore pointedly, “You didn’t grow up poor? Was you mom even a single mom??”

The woman glibly said, “That was just a story,” as if we were pitiable for having believed so easily. Her mother is actually a constitutional lawyer! I was angry, and turned away from that side of the table, impatient with someone who would pass bold-faced, unnecessary lying as party-going charm.

The woman sensed that perhaps she had gone too far. Others gave her some ribbing throughout the evening– she’d be trying to talk about her job, or her house, and someone would assert that we couldn’t believe a word she said. She got a little frustrated; perhaps she was sorry.

At the end of the evening, she came over to sit by me, to try and explain. She said, as if to convince me or make it better, “Don’t you ever lie?” I said that I try not to, and feel terrible when I do. She said, “Don’t you think that lying is like prayer? You just have to practice.”

Honestly, I felt that was sick, and blasphemous, and really basically wrong on so many levels: social, relational, theological, in terms of being a healthy adult… I could barely answer her. I actually physically turned away from her. I certainly couldn’t answer her. If that’s what one thinks about prayer, I’m not sure what I can say.

I’m not sure what this encounter has to do with Emilia and Iago, just that I am sympathetic to the truth, and am struck by how fantastic liars are in print and on stage. I am sure there are many dinner parties where the lying woman I met would be considered sparkling and coy, a fascinating party guest.

I note that Andrew points out that Emilia can be seen as “pitiable,” and “endure[s].” I guess she’s surrounded by deceit, and there’s not that much she can do about it–she’s not a powerful person in her time and place.

I love that phrase, “So come my soul to bliss as I speak true.” It has a kind of poignancy; at least in literature, truth-tellers aren’t always rewarded, and have to take cold comfort in being true.

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2 Responses

The interesting thing about Emilia is that she seems to transform into a truth-teller. That’s who she is in Act V, but that’s not the character we see earlier in the play. In the world of the play, it’s perhaps a little surprising that Emilia winds up in that virtuous role at the end, since it is Desdemona who embodies virtue in the play. One of the things I find fascinating about the play Othello is how Shakespeare uses the characters as counterpoints, contrasting one against the other thematically. Emilia is in many ways a contrast to Desdemona, who represents the “ideal woman.”

I too would be insulted by someone talking about themselves like that and then saying, “Oh that was just a story.” It would have made more sense to me if she had said, “Let me tell you a story,” and then followed with the fact that it was fiction. One of the things that I always have felt is that you have to be careful about lies that you might tell because you have to keep straight what you said to who. Lies tend to catch up with you at some point, so to me it is just easier to tell the truth. One of the scary things about lies whether you say them aloud or just have them in your head, is that if you tell them or think them long enough you believe that they are the truth. To me that is the worst thing about lies that are told electronically. Even when the person recants and says, “Oh that was just a story.” The lie lives on. Not worth the headache and trouble you start by lying in the first place. I am not sure I tell out right lies very often, but I have to admit that in some ways I lie by keeping quiet. Times when I should be a “truth teller” and I just keep my mouth shut. I think that is the way we probably most often perpetuate lies. And, I agree about the practicing part. That is just sick. I would have been right there with you turning my back and walking off on her. YUCK! And, it would be hard for me to believe anything she ever said. I have known people like that and you tend to never listen to what they say because you are never sure what is truth and what is lie so why bother. Not someone I would ever invite to a party. I am right there with you.